Unmanned spaceflight still means a lot of flying

I am flying off to be the Morgan lecturer at Texas Christian University in Forth Worth, Texas. I will speak about “Observing the Origin of the Universe” and about the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) says it is observing “the oldest light in the Universe” when looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the blackbody radiation left over from the Big Bang. It has been more than 30 years since I started working on the CMB and COBE (the COsmic Background Explorer), but I had earlier encounters with the pioneers of CMB research in Palestine, Texas while working on a balloon-borne far infrared telescope for my PhD research. That stratospheric telescope, and my subsequent projects (the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, COBE, WMAP, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and WISE), have all been unmanned, but participating in these projects has led to over two million miles of airline travel.